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Dandy Warhols"Earth To The Dandy Warhols"

(Beat The World Records 2008)

While most bands are looking to grow album to album, few are willing to take so great a leap as to exclude their fans. There are even fewer bands that you can genuinely say you have absolutely no clue what their next album will sound like. If anything has been proven in the past few years, it is that The Dandy Warhols are definitely a band that falls into both categories. If "Welcome To The Monkey House" and "Odditorium Or Warlords Of Mars" didn't throw you for a loop then the band's newest disc, "Earth To The Dandy Warhols," probably won't be cause for you to break into a sweat.

The Dandys are strongest and in their best form for the low thumping, cocky swagger of "The Legend Of The Last Of The Outlaw Truckers AKA The Ballad Of Sheriff Shorty" while the disco throw-back "Welcome To The Third World" is fun and slinky. Also in the mix is the trippy and loose Beach Boys style rocker "Mis Amigos" which fans may know in its previous incarnation as 2006's "Have A Kick Ass Summer." "I just don't care no more," lead man Courtney Taylor-Taylor asserts on "Valerie Yum" amidst a seemingly unending stream that sees "yum" repeated over stamping upbeat rock that eventually finds itself morphing into "Yummy Yummy Yummy" (you know, "I got love in my tummy") before offering a dissertation (avec French accent) on nougat over a soft lull that fades out on "Musee D'Nougat."

Far less focused on singles at this point, "Earth To The Dandy Warhols" is full of jams and burn outs with the band's expectedly tight instrumentation that is, somewhat predictably, never in any rush. The band do evoke a few "haven't I heard this before?" moments. A "fuck you" to critics (and some fans)? Probably but, more likely, "Earth To The Dandy Warhols" is the Portland band managing to remain on the fringes of indie rock and march to their own beat.